Australia’s leading screen conference, run by SPAA, is in Sydney this week and many multi-platform folk associated with LAMP & AFTRS in the past are in force with a record number of panels and sessions. The heavily featured 360 Media (and by implication Social Media) track sits nicely in the theme of this years conference ‘Reaching Your Audience’. LAMP’s Gary Hayes is listed as a key advisor to this years event and the following are a taste of some of the great sessions worth checking out. Lots more detail on the downloadable PDF on the SPAA Conference site.

The sessions below are the LAMP best 360, multi platform picks for the 3 days

Do you really know what Alternate or Augmented Reality Games are, or what makes Social Media Entertainment really successful?

How do you plan, produce and maintain complex distributed narrative, multi-platform services?

Why do interactive stories work & how to get clients interested in it

How can you combine the immersion of games with the drama of film and TV?

How can you keep people engaged across time and space?

What is the true Future of Entertainment?

The way content is consumed has changed. A selection of leading innovators in multi-platform content present recent projects in the areas of social media, cross platform storytelling, extended entertainment, games and online entertainment. This will be an eye opener for those who thought cross-media meant TV show and a website!

Hoodlum (global leaders in distributed storytelling) will share behind the scenes on their world renowned multi-platform ‘game-like’ dramas such as Lost, Spooks and Emmerdale. World Communities will highlight the best social media services that draw in audience and user participation while also building loyalty for future services. Animal Logic on a live link from LA will talk about the future of entertainment formats while Xumii will look at this from a social mobile perspective. Finally MOGIE/Forget the Rules will show a unique new Australian grown format combining live action and game worlds. Sohail Dahdal and Gary Hayes, both leading multi-platform creators themselves, will manage this very special seminar.

The Ozdox website is www.ozdox.org – register to be notified of seminars by email.

This special OzDox session, produced by Sensory Image, will explore new technologies and online video festival and multi-channel distribution sites (e.g. raindance.tv). It will gaze into the crystal ball for documentary filmmakers, in the new climate of ABC and SBS online streaming. It will bring together experts and filmmakers to examine the impact of VOD upon our work, our pocketbooks and our futures.

Video online has been developing for a number of years and has now gained a large following and a big press. From You Tube to the ABC, increasing numbers of people are uploading and downloading increasing amounts of material, and filmmakers have an imperative need to understand the rapidly evolving online environment.

At this point, Video-on-Demand is relatively underused but Hollywood and TV networks alike are looking toward VOD as a complementary distribution platform, and it is about to take off. As the educational market is also moving towards VOD, documentary DVD sales will also affected — perhaps even replaced. Significantly, VOD revenues are currently around $1.5 billion and are predicted to reach $5 billion in two years — and it’s only the beginning…

What do filmmakers need to know about online – technically, creatively and in terms of marketing and delivery to audiences?

What do we need to change in the way we plan and make our films?

Is online delivery a viable alternative to DVD distribution?

Where can filmmakers go to make a return on investment in the online forum?

There will also be time for those attending the seminar to ask questions of the panel.

Guests bios:

Robert Hutchinson – Head of New Media & Digital Services Interface stream, ABC

As Head of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s New Media & Digital Services Interface stream, Robert is responsible for the visual presentation and ease of use of digital content and services on the website, broadband service and other digital platforms. Robert is also Creative Director of ABC2, the ABC’s new digital TV channel. His current role includes developing broadband and digital television strategies and initiatives for the corporation. Robert has been working in the multi-media and Internet industries since 1995 in a variety of roles including new media arts practitioner, web designer and business analyst. He has been responsible for establishing Internet ventures for major advertising and media companies including Saatchi & Saatchi
(Wellington) and The Radio Network (NZ). Robert also works as an independent film producer and director.

One of the leading visionaries in Australian Media and Technology, Chris consults on business strategy with particular regard to the impact of P2P technologies on media through Perceptric Pty Limited. As CEO of Lake Technology (ASX) he successfully led the company to a sale to Dolby Laboratories (NYSE), and subsequently consulted to Dolby’s Consumer Division on global consumer strategy. With 20 years in the Australian Music Industry, Chris led the development of the first transactional web site for CDs at BMG, as well as the development of the enhanced CD. Founding chairman of the Australian Music Industry‚Äôs charity, the Golden Stave Foundation, and founding chairman of Export Music Australia, Chris received the Order of Australia for his contribution to the music industry and charity.

Founder of Raindance Film Festival in 1993, the British Independent Film Awards in 1998, and Raindance.TV in 2007, Elliot has produced over 150 short films and 5 feature films. He teaches writers and producers in the UK, Europe, Japan and America. He has written three books which have become industry standards: BEGINNERS GUIDE TO MAKING IT IN FILM (Barrons 2009), RAINDANCE WRITERS LAB 2nd Edition (Focal Press 2008) and RAINDANCE PRODUCERS LAB (2004).

Zara Ballantyne-Grove – Raindance.tv

Zara managed the 2006 Nokia Shorts competition as well as the creation of mobile assets for the popular CSI franchise. She currently manages the licensing of content for Raindance.tv and supervises the scheduling and delivery of films to over 10 distribution partners. London-based Raindance.tv streams off-beat shorts, features and documentaries worldwide over 10 media platforms. In the last five months, over 300,000 people have already watched raindance.tv.

Project Description: One girl embarks on a quest to discover the truth behind the camp legend of a missing teenager. Black Creek takes a thrilling ride into the imagination of Stefanie and her friends as they experience their first high school camp together. Without their parents and the security of home, they have to work together as they come face to face with the very adult world of danger, mystery and the dark unknown.
An interactive short format mystery series that taps into the intrigue of camp legends and myths. Black Creek recreates the excitement and adventure of attending camp and the thrills that come from the scary tales told.

A stellar line-up of mentors from all over Australia and a few internationals have been confirmed for the 7th Live-in-lab (LAMP: Story of the Future) on South Stradbrooke Island, Queensland Nov 07. They can be seen on the mentors page or copied below.

GUARDIAN MENTORS

MATT COSTELLO – Writer and Games Designer, Polar ProductionsMatt Costello is based in New York, London and LA and has written ground-breaking and award-winning novels, games, and television. Matt has scripted dozens of best-selling games and of one Time Magazine said, “The story is delivered with unusual art.” He wrote the groundbreaking Pirates of the Caribbean 3 game across all platforms and has been commissioned to do the fourth in the series.

Since writing the critically acclaimed classic game The 7th Guest, he has scripted dozens of best-selling games such as Shellshock-Nam ‘67 (Guerrilla Games and Eidos), Bad Boys 2 (Empire) and 2005’s Doom 3 winner of an unprecedented five awards at E3 including the Game Critics Award: Best of E3. Just Cause, co-written for Eidos, debuted as the #1 game for Xbox 360 in the UK. Named ‘Best Adventure Game’ at the 2006 E3, it premiered on the US best-seller lists as the #2 Xbox 360 game.

He has written a major new game for Eidos and Rage a new game for ID Software and other notable games include:

Hercules, for Disney Interactive

The Dark Half, for MGM.

Derelict, for The Sci-Fi Channel

Fatal Illusion -The Clue Chronicles – for Hasbro

Barbie’s Riding Adventure–for Mattel

Clifford’s Reading– for Scholastic

Starsky & Hutch – for Empire

The Italian Job – Eidos

Matt also specialises in the kid’s genre and has created many award-winning games for children. Several years ago he co-created one of the first major experiments in ‘two-way TV’, called ZoogDisney. Branded as ‘TV you do’ – for two years the ZoogDisney weekend bloc re-shaped the Disney channel, bringing it squarely into the interactive and ‘tweens world. He has written a kids book series for Scholastic , The Kids of Einstein Elementary, which blends adventure and math and also scripted episodes of the award-winning PBS animated series, Cyberchase. Other awards include the landmark Aladdin’s Mathquest with math expert Marilyn Burns for Disney, as well as A Cartoon History of the Universe (Putnam).

Matt is a designer of many role-playing and board games, including Dungeons and Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Batman, Lone Wolf & Cub, and many others. He also co-wrote episodes of the BBC/Disney series Microsoap, winner of the Prix de Jeunesse and is currently creating an MMOG using Multiverse which integrates its story world with an animated Childrens BBC TV series. Penguin published his latest novel, Nowhere, in 2007.

JENNIFER WILSON – Head of Innovation, Nine MSN

Jennifer Wilson has over 20 years in interactive consumer content and information services, from first building interactive voice response systems in the UK, through voting, banking, gambling and marketing services; online and on all forms of telephone, fixed and mobile.

She was previously Managing Director of HWW, a specialist content aggregation, syndication and digital publishing company, which provides the yourTime™ products (yourMovies, yourTV etc). HWW is also a major developer of mobile sites, providing mobile publishing tools for hard-to-source content as well as building third-party mobile (and web) sites. HWW was recently purchased by ninemsn.

Jennifer holds a patent in the delivery of TV to mobile phones. She has a keen interest in social networking, digital public spaces, tribes, blogs and forums and the interesting digital world of Gen-C.

Dr. JOHN BANKS – Researcher & Games Manager

Dr John Banks is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Federation Fellowship program, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology. His research interests focus on the emerging relations between media corporations, educational and cultural institutions, and user-led innovation and consumer co-creation in participatory culture networks. He has a particular interest in videogames.

From 2000-2005 John worked in the videogames industry for Brisbane based Auran Games as an online community manager, focusing on the development of user-led content creation networks within the context of game development projects; he has published widely on research grounded in this industry background. He was also a researcher and project leader at the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID). His background also includes research and tutoring in literary theory and cultural studies at the University of Queensland (School of English, Media Studies and Art History).

John’s current research & consultancy continues to work at the interface of game developers and gamers as they negotiate emerging co-creation relations. He is currently working with Auran Games on social network strategies for their forthcoming massively multiplayer online game, Fury. In April 2007, John gave an invited presentation to the Convergence Culture Consortium, MIT, addressing the challenges of co-creation relationships (“Navigating Co-Creator Relationships: How do you make this Damned thing Work?”) You can see John’s recent presentation on these issues for AFTRS Centre for Screen Business (User co-creation relations: Emerging social network markets) here.

Marissa has worked extensively in television, cross-platform entertainment and interactive advertising over the past 10 years as a writer, creative strategist and content producer on a diverse range of innovative, award-winning cross-media projects.

As a new media content producer and senior interactive writer for Australia’s first interactive television series produced by Hoodlum Active, Fat Cow Motel (ABC, Austar), Marissa was responsible for developing an immersive, cross-platform game and producing interactive content across web, iTV, email, mobile and dial-up channels that delivered unprecedented results for the ABC becoming the most visited TV website ever for ABC Online. Marissa also worked on an innovative pre-broadcast viral media campaign delivered via print, radio, email, SMS and web. Marissa won the inaugural Australian Writers’ Guild Interactive Media Award in 2005 for her work on Fat Cow Motel.

Marissa was also a scriptwriter on the AFI award-winning first series of the Foxtel drama series Love My Way (Southern Star), as well as the Australian-German co-production Blue Water High (Southern Star) and the SBSTV Mockumentary Series, S(truth).

Marissa’s recent work includes roles as Interactive Content Producer and co-writer for the Yahoo! 7 interactive drama series and game, PS Trixi produced by Hoodlum Active – a world-first 12 episode new media ‘event’ delivered across web, Instant Messenger, email, mobile and video platforms.

Most recently, Marissa worked as creative strategist, concept and gameplay designer for Emmerdale Online, a new interactive, cross-platform channel and narrative-based game produced by Hoodlum Active for the hugely popular UK television series, Emmerdale. Emmerdale Online has recently been nominated for several prestigous international awards including Best Drama in the MIPCOM Mobile, Internet and CrossMedia TV Awards, and Best TV online channel for the 2007 Pixel Awards.

Marissa is currently developing several of her own cross-platform projects as well as consulting for a range of clients including television programme producers and award winning interactive advertising agency Tribal DDB as a digital content developer and copywriter across campaigns for Volkswagen, NIKE, Gatorade and McDonalds, three of which were awarded Gold Medals at the prestigious Montruex International Advertising & Multimedia Festival in 2006 & 2007.

ANDREW APOSTOLA – Creative Director Portable Content

Andrew Apostola is the co-founder and Creative Director of Portable Content, an Australian based digital studio that designs and manages innovative web applications for a range of clients in the online space.

In 2006 the company successfully launched portablefilmfestival.com, a user generated video site that distributes video to users through portable video platforms including iPods, mobile phones and laptops. In 2007 the project expanded internationally and was recently launched in the United States at the South By South-West Film and Interactive in Austin Texas.

Andrew has worked for a range of broadcasters and media providers and is well known for successfully launching the Student Youth Network alongside Portable Content co-founder Simon Goodich in Melbourne in 2003. The network is the largest youth media orgnanisation in South-East Asia, operating a full-time terrestrial radio license and broadcasting on television and the web.

As Creative Director of Portable Content Andrew follows the emerging online video sector closely and develops and implements innovative video components for the company and its clients. These include the creation of classnet, a video sharing community for educators and students and syn.org.au, an online distribution platform for independent mediamakers.

Andrew has completed a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), a Post Graduate Diploma in English Literature at the University of Melbourne and Film and Television Production at Ryerson University in Toronto.

ANTHONY EDEN – Interactive Producer and Designer

Anthony “Arse” Eden is a co-founder and director of Snepo Research, an Australian software and game development studio with a strong focus on innovation. Arse spends his time at Snepo researching new interface and software technologies as well as directing the production of public facing interactive systems. Over the last two years Snepo has cemented its place as a premier development shop, servicing customers all over the world.

Arse has co-authored books on software development and digital creativity, including New Masters of Flash and titles on 3D and Game development. He’s developed award winning educational software for Microsoft and the ICAC and his work has appeared on NBC, CBC and Channel 4. He’s run interactive game development workshops in Norway, Wales and Canada. He’s also an internationally known speaker, having presented at conferences all over the world.

His passions lie in the application of abstract mathmatic principals to the digital realm. By combinding those principals with his fascination with natural patterns and organic relationships he creates truely unique and engaging interactive experiences.

JACKIE TURNURE – Non-linear storyteller

With script editing and writing experience in both traditional and new media, Jackie Turnure brings a unique perspective to the role of narrative in cross media production. For the last 15 years she has been working across film, television, games and online production, with a particular focus on animation and children’s content.

Jackie received her Bachelor of Arts (Visual Communications) from Sydney College of the Arts and her Master of Fine Arts (Film Production) from San Francisco State University. She spent nine years in the US teaching screenwriting at New York University, Hunter College and the Academy of Arts College, San Francisco. During that time, Jackie wrote and directed eight short films and videos that have won awards and screened internationally.

After returning to Sydney, Jackie produced and directed three 3D animated kids’ games for PC, “Bananas in Pyjamas ” It’s Party Time”, “Oz – The Magical Adventure” and “Oz – The Interactive Storybook”. The games have won numerous awards and been distributed in 18 countries. Jackie lectures part time at AFTRS, was an industry mentor at the NSW Film and Television Office’s Indigenous Writers Workshop, ran a Game Design Workshop in FTI in Perth and gave a workshop on Alternative Narratives for the Australian Writer’s Guild. In addition, Jackie works as a script editor and story consultant on feature films, animated television series and animated games. She recently completed story producing and writing 3 episodes on Deadly, a half hour animated TV series based on the books by Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzman. Jackie was the script editor and voice director on Stolen Life, an animated feature produced in Machinima, written and produced by Peter Rasmussen. She has just recently won a development award at Milia 2007 from Ogilvy and AMEX for her ARG project ‘Diamond Reef’.

GARY HAYES – Director LAMP and Head of Virtual Worlds, TPF

Gary is the Director of LAMP and the Head of Virtual Worlds with the UK ‘The Project Factory‘. He has led The Laboratory for Advanced Media Production at AFTRS since 2005 that has helped develop 54 Australian emerging media projects and run hundreds of workshops and industry seminars. As Head of Virtual Worlds at the Project Factory he has personally produced, designed and built Second Life presences for Australian brands, including Telstra, Tourism and MultiMedia Victoria, Physical TV and ABC TV. He is currently developing experience worlds for fortune 100 and other global companies.

Before coming to Australia Gary was Senior Producer at BBC Broadcast and New Media for 8 years devising and producing many of the BBC’s digital “firsts” – the first 24/7 Interactive TV service, the first live internet documentary and the first truly interactive programming for Broadband TV. He also created over 20 other enhanced TV shows, several future BBC cross-platform navigators and was part of BBC Imagineering developing early “inhabited TV”, Virtual World and TV Mixed Reality formats.

He was a driving force behind New Media training and strategy and became BBC Senior Development Manager in New Media and simultaneously chaired the Business Models for TV-Anytime (the global personalized TV standard). He moved to the US in 2004 to develop on-demand TV with broadcasters such as NBC and CBS and also line produced the Showtime’s enhanced L-Word, PVR service as part of the AFI initiative. He recently co-authored a UK Department Trade and Industry Report on Personalised TV and has been an International Interactive Emmy juror for the past two years.

Gary recently keynoted on virtual worlds at CeBit, AIMIA, Monash and presented on education and brands in virtual worlds on radio, podcasts and many seminars. He produces dramatic and corporate machinima and runs workshops in virtual Multi User Story Environments (vMUSE’s) for cinematographers, designers, and script writers – exploring the potential of shared, social online virtual worlds for collaborative production, creativity and education. He runs several popular blogs including media personalisation, digital brands, new media forms (personalizemedia), Second Life POV (justvirtual) and many others found here on his Wikipedia user profile.

PRODUCTION MENTORS

CATHERINE GLEESON – Interaction Designer

Catherine has been working as a Creative Director in print and new media since 1988. She has extensive experience in information design and visual communication. Her projects include: creative direction of visitor multimedia for the National Gallery of Victoria’s (NGV), Centre for Australian Art at Federation Square.

Past work includes consultation, creative direction and design on local and international projects for clients such as: the National Geographic (Washington); the Smithsonian Institute (Washington); the American Museum of Natural History (New York); Foster’s Brewing Group; Lonely Planet and ANZ.

Through her company Platform09, Catherine also maintains a separate creative practice. Past projects have included: collaborative, installation work for Experimental; motion graphics, animation and multimedia design for theatre, film and video.

PETER GILES – Head of Digital Media AFTRS & Producer LAMP

Peter has worked as the Head of the Digital Media Department since 1998 and has established Australia’s leading postgraduate and professional programs in Visual Effects, Interactive Media, Broadcast Design and Computer Animation. The Department has produced short films that have won both Australian and international awards for artistic and technical excellence.

Prior to joining the AFTRS Peter worked as Digital Media Manager for Metro Screen where he initiated programs to develop the skills of new and emerging filmmakers. He managed a wide range of innovative production workshops in partnership with organisations including the Loud Youth Festival, IBM, the Australian Film Commission, the NSW Film and Television Office, ABC Online, SBS TV, the Performance Space, the Australian Centre for Photography and the Australian Network for Art and Technology.

Peter has developed digital media curriculum and taught workshops at the University of Sydney, the University of Technology, Sydney, Griffith University and the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.

Over the past 15 years Peter has produced projects for radio, television, film and interactive media. His video artwork has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney and the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. Peter is a well known commentator on digital media and is currently the Chair of the Sydney Chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH, the leading computer graphics industry body.

“I find it very interesting to see how much people value on-line communities but go about setting them up without a purpose or goal. They say here is a chat room that is set up alongside a TV series but don’t give people anything to talk about…we are giving people very precise information and asking people to work together to find the answers.”

Evan Jones is the Creative Director of Xenophile Media Xenophile which is a Canadian cross media production company specialising in extended media experiences. Evan is an interactive media producer from the combined disciplines of computer science, film studies and radio production. His projects range from narrative console gaming to interactive historical documentary. Winner of the 2005 Canadian New Media Awards for Excellence in Cross Platform and Banff Television Award for Interactive Television, his project ‘The ReGenesis Extended Reality’ game engages players to interact with characters from the series. The project has attracted a whole new audience eager for more than bios and episodic summaries. The game draws viewers into a conspiracy and mystery that weaves in and out of the TV series, using the internet, email and other media to immerse the viewer and blur the line between fiction and reality.

Recorded live and unedited during the LAMP lab in Perth in May 2006 in front of the seven teams developing emerging media projects.

David looks at the digital industry in his unique way pointing out both the immaturity in the marketplace and the key opportunities. He talks about key elements of repurposing content, massaging the content for each platform, how broadband and TV can work together by allowing audiences to participate effectively. David also looks at how mobile is often driving new players into the market such as Big Brother due to the high revenue returns.

“We know that interactivity changes the way the audience feels about your show…it becomes their show” as an introduction to his award winning Dog and Cat news service David evangelises about the real empowerment that can take place in the market. He continues by pointing out the levels of engagement inside services like Everquest that starts to blur peoples perception of real life and virtual world and suggests that people who are already involved in these immersive worlds are not going back to sitting and watching a film. It is possible customise these worlds and there is money being made often aimed at young kids and ethical issues are raised.

Davids central piece is a wryly humorous look at the true economics of making money from mobile content – at least one piece at a time! He finishes by showing demos of Hoota and Snoz and a range of other surprising successes globally that have brought much acclaim on his company Blue Rocket as well as their winning Milia 360 pitching entry Urban Anarchy.

PODCAST SUBSCRIPTION
All LAMP podcasts are also published through the iTunes store.

David Gurney is a well known creator of animated cartoons. He created, produced and directed Australia’s first fully 3D animated television series, Hoota & Snoz. The series has sold worldwide into over 100 countries. David is a prolific developer of cartoon characters and concepts and with his business partner Alicia Rackett, runs Blue Rocket Productions, an award winning cartoon studio based in Hobart, Tasmania. Other animated TV produced, written and directed by David include Time Cracks (2 series), Mörmel Spots (3 series), The Dog and Cat News (2 series), Bang the Cat (2 series), and short films The Further Adventures of Stafford the Prawn and Spikey Joe’s Truck. David was also creative director of The Hoota & Snoz Official Website and The Dog and Cat News Website which won Best of the Best and Best Children’s at the 2006 AIMIA Awards. David is also involved in the creation of mobile entertainment including an exclusive deal to produce all 3D animated mobile content for Manchester United. Blue Rocket’s mobile content is sold in over 37 countries worldwide.

Design for Transmedia Audiences – Catherine GleesonCatherine investigates how to design for audiences that are moving across media. Using a nuts and bolts approach combined with a range of esoteric perspectives on spatial navigation, conceptual multi layering and beyond. Catherine helps us understand the unique qualities in our creativity. She looks at basic templates and how they can be used on different platforms and then ventures into the pros and cons of each from small to large mobile devices to large screen. “It is about clever thinking…” in reference to new forms of 3D navigation of large amounts of content and where remote controls themselves are becoming embedded into the ways we interact.

PODCAST SUBSCRIPTION
All LAMP podcasts are also published through the iTunes store. You can subscribe automatically to these if you have iTunes installed by clicking here

Catherine has been working as a Creative Director in print and new media since 1988. She has extensive experience in information design and visual communication. Through her company Platform09, Catherine also maintains a separate creative practice. Past projects have included: collaborative, installation work for Experimenta; motion graphics, animation and multimedia design for theatre, film and video.Sydney 12 Dec 2005Click to listen

The Practise of Interactive Narratives – Mark Stephen MeadowsMark provides us with a very accesible and compelling investigation into new forms of interactive narrative – alternate perspectives, interaction and user journeys. Using the analogy of “stories are about someone who has a problem more interesting than your own” he takes us through the conceptual development aspects of creating journeys that even under viewer control can still engage by providing decision and nodal points. Mark goes further to talk about the historical stages that human narrative have been through and looks at a richer AI based, modulated future of personal story.
Accompanying presentation “The Practise of Interactive Narratives” – Mark Stephen Meadows – HTML page link

PODCAST SUBSCRIPTION
All LAMP podcasts are also published through the iTunes store. You can subscribe automatically to these if you have iTunes installed by clicking here.

Mark Stephen Meadows is a painter that writes. He’s also engineers interactive systems, develops games, designs artificial emotion software and leads groups of designers into burning buildings, and then out again, unscathed. As an architect of interactive content he designs problem sets, characters, and the worlds in which they operate. As an educator he lectures on this work at universities, conferences, and private research institutions. His work of the last thirteen years has included work as Artist-in-Residence at Xerox-PARC, Creative Director for a venture of Stanford Research Institute, and co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of a VR and Internet company named Construct. Meadows has spent time as artist/researcher at the Waag Society, in Holland, and has worked as a consultant for dozens of companies, both large and small.

Below are the mentors that took part in the Victor Harbour residential LAMP Lab from 9-14 October 2005

Catherine Gleeson- Interaction Designer

Catherine has been working as a Creative Director in print and new media since 1988. She has extensive experience in information design and visual communication. Her projects include: creative direction of visitor multimedia for the National Gallery of Victoria’s (NGV), Centre for Australian Art at Federation Square.

Past work includes consultation, creative direction and design on local and international projects for clients such as: the National Geographic (Washington); the Smithsonian Institute (Washington); the American Museum of Natural History (New York); Foster’s Brewing Group; Lonely Planet and ANZ.

Through her company Platform09, Catherine also maintains a separate creative practice. Past projects have included: collaborative, installation work for Experimental; motion graphics, animation and multimedia design for theatre, film and video.

Christy Dena – Transmedia Storyteller

Christy is a world wide, leading practitioner and researcher in cross-media narrative, new media types and their creative application in emerging media. In this area she has contributed numerous articles and reviews to publications such as Australian Book Review, ABC Arts Online and RealTime.

Christy’s work has been referred to in The Age, Encore and in a recent report delivered at the European Commission DG Information Society. Her published articles have covered game-play, artificial intelligence and new narrative forms and she has written creative works for TV, theatre and multi-platform. Christy’s latest visionary work ‘The Villager Girl and the Teenbot’ bridges the gap between print and online chatbot technology.

In 1993 she was nominated for ‘Young Business Person of the Year’ and shortly after worked as a digital effects/TVC producer, business director and web developer. In 2002 she gained a postgraduate diploma in Creative Writing and is currently a Ph.D.candidate in New Media at the School of Creative Arts, Uni of Melbourne. She also teaches new media arts theory at Melbourne and Swinburne Universities, is on the Editorial Committee of New Antigone (a fully refereed international journal), co-edits a renowned site on new media arts, www.WriterResponseTheory.org, and runs a popular research blog, www.crossmediastorytelling.com.

Gary Hayes, Director LAMP@AFTRS

Gary Hayes has been at the forefront of worldwide emerging media development and production since 1993. After joining the BBC in London as an editor he quickly moved on to lead the BBC’s development of the internet, interactive TV and emerging platforms from 95-04 as Senior Producer and Development Manager. The BBC grew from a linear broadcaster to world leader in cross-platform services during this period.

Gary devised & produced many of the BBC’s ‘firsts’ – Digital Text, the first broadcast interactive TV service – ‘Nomad’ the first live internet documentary – ‘X-Creatures’ the first broadband TV service and in ’96 introduced the first video and audio onto the BBC’s internet sites. He also produced and devised over 20 other eTV and broadband TV services including Top of the Pops, Travel Show, State Apart and several future BBC cross-platform navigators. Gary created numerous courses and seminars on Interactive thinking for linear producers and was a leading part of BBC strategy teams from 2001 in preparing for on-demand, cross-platform services. He also chaired the Business Models Group from 99-03 for TV-Anytime (the lead media-on-demand standards body).

Living & consulting in the US during 2004 he line produced Showtime’s PVR enhanced L-Word, as part of AFI digital labs and devised a range of new on-demand program formats for two national TV networks. Gary also produced & chaired conferences around LA including Hollywood industry panel seminars and Digital Days both looking at emerging media super-distribution models. He has presented at over fifty major international conferences and written several consultancy papers including US Interactive TV Advertising and more recently a report for the DTI on Personal Video Enablers for the UK media industry. He runs a blog on Media Personalisation at www.personalizemedia.com and an Interactive producers site at www.garyhayes.tv.

A specialist in personalised digital TV over broadcast and broadband networks Gary evangelises on the empowerment potential of non-passive media. As a published music producer, composer and performer he has had over 200 works performed live and on TV and Radio. Gary ran his own music production business from 1984-89 and is currently working on several film scores.

Jackie Turnure, Non-linear storyteller

With script editing and writing experience in both traditional and new media, Jackie Turnure brings a unique perspective to the role of narrative in cross media production. For the last 15 years she has been working across film, television, games and online production, with a particular focus on animation and children